Ever felt helpless at the hands of the Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) error? Here’s what you should do to keep it at bay.
A cyclic redundancy check (CRC) is a type of hash function used to produce a checksum – a small, fixed number of bits – against a block of data, such as a packet of network traffic or a block of a computer file.
Source: Wikipedia
Storing files in the form of compressed RAR format has benefits beyond just solid compression. Most notably, the ability to split archives and recover data from corrupted ones. WinRAR is a lightweight, easy to use and powerful RAR archiver. It can be obtained from Rar Lab. While creating compressed archives, select the put recovery record option.
Putting the recovery record allows the recovery of data from damaged archives in most of the cases. The overhead data added is very less, generally 1 – 2 percent. Despite the extremely small size, the reliability it adds is really amazing. Around 75% of damaged archives are recoverable.
Data stored in removable media such as CDs become corrupt with wear & tear. Sometimes, in spite of imparting great care, the files may become unreadable. The problem is heightened when the size of the files are quite large, as a few unreadable sectors would render the file unable to be copied. Thankfully, there are softwares to recover such files. CDCheck is one such handy tool. It extracts whatever amount of data that can be read and pads up the ones which can’t. Thus allowing even files with CRC errors to be saved locally.
Using CDCheck and WinRAR (with ‘Put Recovery Record’) in conjugation is a highly safe way of backing up data.